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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sick Defends Sicker

The other night as I was watching the Bob Costas interview with accused pedophile Jerry Sandusky, outside of the obvious, something didn’t sit right with me. Sandusky was doing the interview by phone, but his lawyer, Joseph Amendola, was in the studio with Bob Costas. The way Amendola answered some of Bob’s questions made my skin crawl. And at one point, he even cracked a smile. Really, what on earth is there to smile about in this horrific tragedy?

In the above photo, Amendola is smiling while saying they were able to locate an alleged victim (the one Mike McQueary witnessed being assaulted) when the Commonwealth has not. Funny?? How is this even remotely funny???

Costas: You said a few days ago, “much more is going to come out in our defense.” In broad terms, what?

Joseph Amendola: We expect we’re going to have a number of kids – now how many of those so-called eight kids we’re not sure – but we anticipate we’re going to have at least several of those kids come forward and say this never happened, this is me, this is the allegation, and it never occurred. In fact, one of the toughest allegations – the McQueary allegations – what McQueary said he saw, we have information that that child says that never happened. Now grown up.

Costas: Until now we were told that that alleged victim could not be identified. You have identified him?

Amendola: We think we have.

Costas: So you found him, the Commonwealth has not?

Amendola: Yeah. Interesting, isn’t it?

Costas: Would you allow your own children to be alone with your client?

Costas: You believe in his innocence? Not just that you can mitigate his guilt, you believe in his innocence.

Amendola: I believe in his innocence.

The other day, a colleague and I were talking about this story and how repulsed we have both been about the details since the news broke. And, while I do understand that everyone in this country is entitled to representation, and I do understand that everyone is “innocent until proven guilty”. What I don’t understand is how in good conscience a lawyer can defend someone who is so clearly sick and needs help, or incarceration, or both. What I don’t understand is how a lawyer can blindly defend someone who is so clearly guilty. Apparently it helps when you have a lawyer who thinks along the same lines as the client. Joseph Amendola is, in my opinion, also a pedophile. And now I understand how this particular lawyer can, in his perception of good conscience, defend this particular client.

Back in 1996, this “fine, upstanding” citizen, represented then 16-year-old Mary Iavasile's emancipation petition. Why was she asking to be "divorced" from her parents just weeks before her 17th birthday? She was pregnant with Joseph Amendola's child. He was 49 at the time. According to Mary's mother she graduated from high school in two years with a 3.69 grade point average while holding down a full time job. A job at Amendola’s law office. She met her "mentor", Joseph Amendola, through her school district because she was interested in pursuing a law career. Mary had the child just before her 18th birthday and never did get a law degree. She and Joseph married in 2003, had another child and have since divorced.

Clearly, Joseph Amendola is not the moral compass to get justice for these children who were so brutally violated by Sandusky. When Mary Amendola watched the Costas interview and heard her ex-husband say, without hesitation, that he would feel comfortable leaving his kids alone with Jerry Sandusky, Mary took to her Facebook page. “OMG, did Joe just say that he would allow my kids to be alone with Jerry Sandusky??”

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About Me

Balancing life between raising my son and being a talk show host, based in Washington, DC, I am intimately familiar with joys and struggles of being a single, working mom to the many challenges and often-humorous world of dating. Life is too short to take seriously which, I hope, makes me more approachable to my wonderful loyal audience.
I was tired of the clichéd format of a male host and his female sidekick, so I conceived and pitched Broadminded, a show created by and hosted by women, for women (and men!). Broadminded debuted on XM in October 2005 and ran until March 2013.
In 2008, I created and founded The Duffy House, a non-profit that provides a compassionate safe haven, which encourages security, personal growth, happiness, and independence for women and their children who are survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
I received my BFA at George Mason University and reside in Virginia with my wonderful son Aidan.